Museum of Glass and Jewellery in Jablonec nad Nisou

Transcript

Allow us to welcome you to the exhibition rooms, which will acquaint you with the full range of Jablonec costume jewellery. The exhibition is meant as a tribute to the technical and artistic creativity of past and contemporary designers. The phenomenon of costume jewellery has transformed the region into an internationally acclaimed centre of costume jewellery production. Only in Jablonec nad Nisou and nowhere else will you find in one place all types of costume jewellery. The exhibition recalls the arrangements of the former export houses, which devoted a separate place to each individual type of costume jewellery. You’ll learn about the production technology of costume jewellery from glass, metals and some other materials. Costume jewellery is to this day a highly important industry throughout the region. It has left its imprint not only on the local industries but even on the architecture of the town. The buildings from the 19th and early 20th centuries in Jablonec nad Nisou - at one time one of the largest towns in Bohemia - are textbook examples of modern town planning. During the 19th century, Jablonec nad Nisou developed into a world centre of costume jewellery exports. Its products were called “Jablonec ware” and the prosperous region was nicknamed “the Austrian California”. Just before the start of World War One, the region's taxpayers contributed to the state coffers of the Austro-Hungarian Empire about as much as the entire crown land of Dalmatia. Life in the Jizera Mountains had an international flavour also thanks to the foreigners from the whole world who came every year in their thousands to buy the latest fashion goods. Many of them also had their business here. The production of glass and costume jewellery in the Jizera Mountains is not only a phenomenon of art history, but also an economic and social one, the moving force of the most significant developments in the region over several centuries.